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Re: Olando - meaning and origin
in reply to a message by Renee
Yes, I would say it is a variant of ORLANDO with the R omitted for some reason. ORLANDO is Spanish or Italian for ROLAND. Unlike this site many books claim that the association with "land" is secondary and that the original form of the name may have been something like HRODENAND, the second element being "nand" or "nanth". This is said to mean "bold", although in my Old German dictionary I can only find "nant" as "impudence". There is a third explanation of the second element: soemtimes "-and" is said to be a suffix indicating the present participle as "-ing" in English. The L in ROLAND could then still be explained as an assimilation to "land".
In the case of your name I can imagine the R was dropped because both names sound very similar. Sometimes changes take place due to misspelling.
Try to get hold of "Rolands Song", the sad and bloody story of Roland and his comrade Oliver. It's not really fun to read but it gives you an idea why ROLAND became so popular in the late Middle Ages and then again in times of Romanticism.
Andy ;—)
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